No More Dialup: Grandpa Gets DSL

We all talk about needing multi-megabit-per-second home Internet, but not everyone needs it.

Here at EE Times we may be led to believe that everyone has high-speed internet access. Let me tell you though, high-speed is a relative term.

Chances are, we all started with dialup Internet access in the 1990s. The thought that there are people who still use it makes us scratch our heads and wonder why, but it's true. Some people refuse to get higher speed for a variety of reasons.

Take my father-in-law. He was quite happy paying $5 a month for Juno, a dialup internet service. But it drove his daughter and her husband a little crazy. Why? Because whenever Grandpa went online, his home phone was busy. I mentioned to him several times that he could get high-speed (1 Mbit/s) internet access that's always on for $15 a month, but he didn't want to pay for it.

This year, we had enough. For his birthday, we gave him a DSL phone-line filter and told him that we'd sign him up and pay for the first year. He reluctantly agreed. Last weekend, I went to his house to install the DSL modem. To my surprise, the modem connected right away. Now all I had to do was connect it to Grandpa's Windows XP computer and do a little setup, or so I thought.

First came installing the DSL filters. You just plug the phone's RJ-11 connector into the filter and plug the filter into wall. Simple, right?

Not if you have a wall phone.

The kitchen phone is on the wall with a long coiled cord to the handset. No need for a cordless phone, but there was no way to hide the filter behind the phone and attach the phone back to the wall. Grandpa could live with that so we put the phone on the kitchen counter. There was enough room.

Next came the Windows setup. The instructions were unclear at best and downright confusing at worst. We did get it to work, but it took a call to DSL Extreme tech support, which is very busy on weekends. All I had to do was set up a new connection in Windows and we had connectivity.

Grandpa was impressed. But he didn't believe me when I told him that he could now use his phone and connect to the internet at the same time. I not only had to call his landline, but leave a message on his answering machine.

Before leaving, I rebooted the computer. Now we had a problem, for it was no longer connected to the DSL. I found the connection icon I had created in Windows, clicked on it, and the connection was restored. At this point, I was running out of time, so I created a shortcut on his desktop. He just had to right click on the shortcut after booting and click "connect," but he shouldn't have to. I suggested that he call tech support on Monday when they're less busy. He did and they walked him through how to set up an IP address (instructions said to use DHCP to acquire an IP address automatically). Now, he just boots his computer and he's online. Grandpa is happy. "It's so fast," he said.

You see, high-speed is a relative term. But, will Grandpa pay the $15 a month next year? I believe he will.

Oh, yeah, I remember dial up - not that long ago! We went DSL about (??) 10 years ago - my daughter set it up and it worked great .... for a week or so. Then I had to re-initialize. Turned out she had set up the access for a fixed address (i.e. for a cable modem) but DSL needs a dynamic address. Fixed that and we were off and running. Have a small network going - DSL modem, router with two wired ethernet connections to our 2 desktop PCs and a wireless port (which connects to the smart TV (works great, by the way), the XBOX, our Kindle Fire, the Kindle eReader and whoever else wants to use when visiting). Our DSL rate is one notch above the minium at 6 Mbps and it is quite adequate for streaming movies, etc through the smart TV (via Netflix or Amazon Prime). Fast enough.

Given the limited bandwidth of a standard telco local loop and its noise and time-varying properties--it's amazing that DSL works at all, let alone at the speeds it can achieve. My kudos to those enigneers who had the insught to say "this sounds crazy, but it might work" and to those who have made it work so well, given the situation. Totally unappreciated by folks out there, of course, the way most of these enigneering achievements are unappreciated.

That's quite an assumption and shows your age :) . I had a 300 baud modem in 1979 or 1980 and used that to access the DEC VAX 11/780 at work. I continued to use it to access the Well in the mid-1980s and eventually upgraded to a 1200, then 2400 baud modem.

Supporting parents/grandparents in their use of technology can be a struggle! I gave my father a Mac II in the early 1990s; one time he sent me a letter (through snail-mail) with a hand-drawn image of the screen: a dialog box with a bomb and some text in it. "Mike, what does this mean?" It means I don't want to be in the tech support business, dad! <sigh> well over 20 years later I still am, but now my teenage kids are tasked with it!

A wall phone is no problem. I had DSL for years (gave it up only because AT&T wouldn't give me a new modem to replace my old, flakey one). I had 2 wall phones. Went to RadioShack and bought 2 wall phone DSL filters. It hangs on the wall plate and has it'sd own posts for hanging the wall phone. Neat, clean, not unattractive.

@SteveP67 thanks for the tip on the wall phone filter. I may need it for the next task, getting Grandpa's friend to give up her AOL dailup and go DSL. She will never put up with a hanging filter in her kitchen.

@Robert I agree with you about the DSL speed. I have one grade up from Grandpa, 3Mbps and we can have a PC and an iPad streaming video and another stream on a third PC or phone streaming audio.

I live close enough to a Verizon central office that my line can support 7Mbps for another $20 a month. I don't need it but it's nice to know I can upgrade without having to switch to the evil Comcast.